Teen Faces Year in Jail and $500 Fine After Wearing NRA Shirt to School

Original Post: Reason

Zenon Evans

Back in April, Logan Middle School in West Virginia found itself at the center of controversy when it suspended Jared Marcum, called the police, and had the eighth grader arrested. The teen's crime? Wearing a t-shirt that had a picture of a rifle and text that said, “NRA: Protect your right."

The teenager, who has no previous criminal record, went before a judge last week. He was officially charged with obstructing an officer, which carries a potential penalty of a $500 fine and up to one year in jail. WOWKTV reports:

We obtained official court documents from both sides of this case. On one hand, he arresting officer from the Logan City Police Department, James Adkins, claims that when Jared refused to stop talking, that hindered his ability to do his job, hence, the obstruction charge. On the other side, Ben White points out that nowhere in the arresting officer's petition, does it mention Jared ever making any threats or acting in a violent manner.

"Jared didn’t do anything wrong," his lawyer said. "Officer Adkins could have done something differently," he added. The boy's stepfather, Allen Lardieiri, expressed his disbelief that the situation ever progressed this far. He said, "I don't' see how anybody would have an issue with a hunting rifle and NRA put on a t-shirt, especially when policy doesn't forbid it.”

Marcum insists that at the core of his legal trouble is a fight for constitutional rights. "What they're doing is trying to take away my rights, my freedom of speech and my second amendment,” Marcum said after being arrested. Lardieri stood by statement, reiterating that “what happened here in Logan can reverberate outside of Logan. This isn’t over and neither are our rights.”

The Logan County Board of Education's dress code can be found here. Although the school system forbids “clothing and accessories that display profanity, violence, discriminatory messages or sexually suggestive phrases” as well as advertisements for any alcohol, tobacco, or drug product,” there is no mention of firearms of any kind or the NRA.

TEACHER SUSPENDED FOR TELLING STUDENT HE COULD BE ARRESTED FOR TALKING BADLY ABOUT OBAMA

Original Post: The Blaze

by Mike Opelka

Last Monday, a high school student in North Carolina engaged his social studies teacher in a heated debate about politics and the two leading presidential candidates. During the exchange, the teacher (an obvious Obama supporter) got very angry with the student and accused him of disrespecting the president. She even went so far as to tell the boy that he could be jailed for speaking ill of Obama.

Sarah Campbell of the Salisbury Post first reported on the story. She claims that the school district is not releasing the name of the teacher and that she is not responding to requests for public comment (although the two students identified her to the newspaper). According to Campbell’s story, the teacher will not be suspended or even face disciplinary action for what was heard on the recording. A statement from the school was released at the end of the week:

“The Rowan-Salisbury School System expects all students and employees to be respectful in the school environment and for all teachers to maintain their professionalism in the classroom. This incident should serve as an education for all teachers to stop and reflect on their interaction with students. Due to personnel and student confidentiality, we cannot discuss the matter publicly.” So, how bad was the exchange? It got fairly heated, with the teacher shouting at times. The kerfuffle started after one student asked a question about the teacher’s “fact of the day” that said Romney was a bully back in high school. A student asked:

“Didn’t Obama bully somebody, though?” The teacher started to get angry and said:

“Not to my knowledge.” A couple of students relayed the story about Obama admitting that he bullied someone when he was younger. And that seemed to light the fuse on his teacher’s anger. A couple of the students exchanged words with the angry teacher.

“Stop! Stop! Because there’s no comparison. He’s running for president. Obama is the president.” As one student attempted to argue for a fair, two-sided debate on the history of the candidates, he was shouted down and talked over by the teacher. She continued:

“You got to realize, this man is wanting to be what Obama is. There’s no comparison.” Once again, the students pressed for equal discussion of the histories of both men, with one saying:

“If you’re gonna talk trash about one side, you gotta talk trash about the other.” The teacher just seemed to dig her heels in deeper and press her defense of Obama telling the defiant teen:

“You will not disrespect the president of the United States in this classroom.” Again the student persisted and invoked his First Amendment right.

“I’ll say what I want.” The still unidentified teacher read the student her rules…her Obama rules.

“Not about him, you won’t!” The back and forth continued and the most strident of the two students reminded his teacher that President Bush was constantly treated to negative statements about him while he was in office:

“Whenever Bush was president, everybody talked sh-t about him.” To which the teacher responded:

“Because he was sh-tty.” The social studies educator went on for a full minute with more ranting, saying that people were arrested for saying derogatory things about President Bush. The student correctly reminded the teacher that opinions are protected, but you cannot be arrested unless you threaten the president.

Our research has not turned up a single case of anyone in America being arrested for speaking ill of former President Bush. The local newspaper story also mentioned that their discussions about the story with a political science professor could not recall the arrests that the teacher was speaking about.

Update:

We learned the name and the fate of the Social Studies teacher heard on the video posted below. Toyna Dixon-Neely is the woman heard yelling at students who dared to express negative opinions about President Obama. We also found out that Ms. Dixon-Neely’s outrageous statements may not have led to a strict punishment: the local newspaper is reporting that she has been suspended with pay. (Curiously the Huffington Post says that the teacher is on an unpaid suspension, pending the outcome of the investigation by the school board.)

The entire confrontation was recorded by a student and posted on YouTube. Listen below; slight content warning for language.

Reedsburg Catechism teacher rants about Scott Walker factually inaccurate and unintentionally racist

Keep in mind this is a Catechism class. I took Catechism class and we didn't talk about anything like this. My class was, you know, mostly about the Bible and Christian teachings. This teacher asserts that 40% of blacks between the ages of 18 and 24 don't have drivers licenses and are therefore disenfranchised. Really? Really? I won't go over the list of things that an 18 year old can't do with out a picture id in modern day life (in Milwaukee that includes being outside after 10) but this is really a condescending statistic. It would only disenfranchise people if they were unable to get an ID. The voter id law provides for a FREE id for those who want it. So this teacher is saying that black people will be (and I want to make it perfectly clear that this is his thinking and not mine because I believe they are smart enough to get an id) disenfranchised from voting because they are too stupid to get an id and too lazy to vote absentee. He also says that Mitt Romney paid less in taxes than the student's parents. Again, really? Let's say the average middle class worker in Wisconsin pays 30% (which is way high but for purposes of this problem we'll let it slide), we also know that the average Wisconsin worker makes about $35k a year. Mitt Romney paid about 14% which amounted to about $3.2 million. Ok some simple math and....30% of 35,000 is....$10,500. This teacher is asserting that 3,200,000 < 10,500. Now I think why MPS is an intellectual void in which only about 8% graduate and can read at an eight grade level. Something, something wine and wafers.

School disctrict hires more teachers BECAUSE of Scott Walker's budget

Original Post: Washington Examiner
Union curbs rescue a Wisconsin school district

By: Byron York
Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker signs his first budget in front of supporters gathered at Fox Valley Metal Tech in Ashwaubenon, Wis., on Sunday, June 26, 2011. The budget helped save the struggling Kaukauna School District, in the Fox River Valley of Wisconsin.
"This is a disaster," said Mark Miller, the Wisconsin Senate Democratic leader, in February after Republican Gov. Scott Walker proposed a budget bill that would curtail the collective bargaining powers of some public employees. Miller predicted catastrophe if the bill were to become law -- a charge repeated thousands of times by his fellow Democrats, union officials, and protesters in the streets.

Now the bill is law, and we have some very early evidence of how it is working. And for one beleaguered Wisconsin school district, it's a godsend, not a disaster.

The Kaukauna School District, in the Fox River Valley of Wisconsin near Appleton, has about 4,200 students and about 400 employees. It has struggled in recent times and this year faced a deficit of $400,000. But after the law went into effect, at 12:01 a.m. Wednesday, school officials put in place new policies they estimate will turn that $400,000 deficit into a $1.5 million surplus. And it's all because of the very provisions that union leaders predicted would be disastrous.

In the past, teachers and other staff at Kaukauna were required to pay 10 percent of the cost of their health insurance coverage and none of their pension costs. Now, they'll pay 12.6 percent of the cost of their coverage (still well below rates in much of the private sector) and also contribute 5.8 percent of salary to their pensions. The changes will save the school board an estimated $1.2 million this year, according to board President Todd Arnoldussen.

Of course, Wisconsin unions had offered to make benefit concessions during the budget fight. Wouldn't Kaukauna's money problems have been solved if Walker had just accepted those concessions and not demanded cutbacks in collective bargaining powers?

"The monetary part of it is not the entire issue," says Arnoldussen, a political independent who won a spot on the board in a nonpartisan election. Indeed, some of the most important improvements in Kaukauna's outlook are because of the new limits on collective bargaining.

In the past, Kaukauna's agreement with the teachers union required the school district to purchase health insurance coverage from something called WEA Trust -- a company created by the Wisconsin teachers union. "It was in the collective bargaining agreement that we could only negotiate with them," says Arnoldussen. "Well, you know what happens when you can only negotiate with one vendor." This year, WEA Trust told Kaukauna that it would face a significant increase in premiums.

Now, the collective bargaining agreement is gone, and the school district is free to shop around for coverage. And all of a sudden, WEA Trust has changed its position. "With these changes, the schools could go out for bids, and lo and behold, WEA Trust said, 'We can match the lowest bid,'" says Republican state Rep. Jim Steineke, who represents the area and supports the Walker changes. At least for the moment, Kaukauna is staying with WEA Trust, but saving substantial amounts of money.

Then there are work rules. "In the collective bargaining agreement, high school teachers only had to teach five periods a day, out of seven," says Arnoldussen. "Now, they're going to teach six." In addition, the collective bargaining agreement specified that teachers had to be in the school 37 1/2 hours a week. Now, it will be 40 hours.

The changes mean Kaukauna can reduce the size of its classes -- from 31 students to 26 students in high school and from 26 students to 23 students in elementary school. In addition, there will be more teacher time for one-on-one sessions with troubled students. Those changes would not have been possible without the much-maligned changes in collective bargaining.

Teachers' salaries will stay "relatively the same," Arnoldussen says, except for higher pension and health care payments. (The top salary is around $80,000 per year, with about $35,000 in additional benefits, for 184 days of work per year -- summers off.) Finally, the money saved will be used to hire a few more teachers and institute merit pay.

It is impossible to overstate how bitter and ugly the Wisconsin fight has been, and that bitterness and ugliness continues to this day with efforts to recall senators and an unseemly battle inside the state Supreme Court. But the new law is now a reality, and Gov. Walker recently told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that the measure will gain acceptance "with every day, week and month that goes by that the world doesn't fall apart."

In the Kaukauna schools, the world is not only not falling apart -- it's getting better.

Marquette Warrior Blogger Threatened by Provost, Dean and Department Chair

Original Post: MU Warrior

We just got out of a meeting with Provost John Pauly, interim Arts & Sciences Dean Phil Rossi, and Political Science Department Chair Barry McCormick.

This was the meeting we were summoned to by Pauly.

Pauly, in an e-mail to us, said the meeting was about “some of the ongoing potential conflicts between your role as Marquette professor and employee, and independent blogger-journalist.”

The bottom line: all three – Pauly, Rossi and McCormick – want us to entirely stop blogging about student organizations.

Pauly claimed to have no problem with our blogging about faculty and administrators, but claimed our blogging about student affairs has been out of line. How much of this was a genuine concern (some of it probably was) and how much was the result of an ideological bias from liberal administrators two a conservative blogger (there was almost certainly some of that too) we can’t say.

Two specific instances were mentioned. First, we called the listed home number of a student, talked to (apparently) her father and left a polite message asking for a return call, explaining that we were working on a blog post about The Vagina Monologues (the student was listed as the Marquette contact on vday.org). Apparently, the student’s parents freaked. All three administrators (Pauly, Rossi and McCormick) condemned the call saying that faculty should never call the parents of students. They said that the parents should have been in Fr. Wild’s office loudly complaining about it.

We replied that we were calling the listed number of the student (and had no way of knowing that she was living with her parents), and that’s it’s standard practice for a journalist to call a potential source at home. But Pauly, Rossi and McCormick explicitly stated that we should somehow have known that the parents would freak. We were accused of merely offering “rationalizations.”

All thee insisted that we don’t have any of the prerogatives of a journalist, since the role of a professor trumps that of a faculty blogger.

The other issue raised was the fact that we had mentioned a student’s research paper, and were accused of “criticizing” it. In reality, we did not mention the student’s name, and the point of the blog post was that “‘gender studies’ has been added to ‘women’s studies’ signals a move toward a homosexual emphasis, as shown by one of the papers completed by a WGST fellow this summer . . . .” The blog post was, quite simply, a comment on the fact that the Women’s and Gender Studies program has begun to slip “queer studies” into the university.

Pauly, Rossi and McCormick lamely replied that people could find the name of the student (we included the title of the paper, which could be googled), and that some people knew that we had supposedly “criticized the student.” In fact, nothing was said that was favorable or unfavorable about the student.

A Sandbox?

McCormick, using a metaphor that was supremely insulting to students, insisted that student activities are a “sandbox,” and that faculty should never comment on what student organizations do.

We pointed out that, in the issues they brought up, Marquette as an institution had been the issue. The Vagina Monologues will be sponsored by Social and Cultural Sciences, and the post that “criticized student research” was about the Women’s and Gender Studies Program.

We further pointed out that when students do high-profile public things, there is a legitimate news interest in what they do. In fact, it serves students well to learn that when they do highly visible controversial public things in some official role, they might get criticized.

Further, what student organizations do has consequences for the University. When Fr. Wild announced that Marquette is going to provide domestic partner benefits for gay and lesbian couples, he explicitly cited a resolution calling for that from Marquette University Student Government. If student organizations can affect Marquette University policy, it’s hard to see how they should be exempt from scrutiny.

As the meeting moved on, Rossi and McCormick became more ad hominem, Rossi accusing us of having a “blind spot,” and McCormick asserting that nobody he knew felt that our blogging about student organizations was acceptable. Since we’ve gotten multiple supporting e-mails, that says more about McCormick’s circle of friends than about what “everybody believes.”

All three implied (and sometimes stated) that we had been guilty of some violation of professional ethics, but could not explain what that would be, beyond McCormick’s “sandbox” metaphor, and the general notion that faculty should never publicly say anything negative about a student, even a student in a very public role doing something controversial.

We were willing to make only one concession: we assured the group that we would be more careful in the future about mentioning student’s names. (It typically isn’t that significant who the student is anyway.) But that wasn’t enough.

They hang tough with the position that we should never comment on student affairs, and we were threatened by both Pauly and McCormick saying that we would “be here [in a meeting like this] again” if we persisted in blogging about the activities of student groups.

Needless to say, we will continue to blog about activities on campus, and when the actions of student organizations have substantial news interest, we will report them.

Search Wisconsin teacher's salaries for yourself

Teacher's Salaries

Here you can search Wisconsin teacher's salaries and fringe benefits for yourself.

read the email I just received..shame on these teachers.

Original Post: Vicki McKenna

by Vicki McKenna on Monday, March 21, 2011 at 9:51am

I have asked for the letter, and will post it here as an update when I receive it. ALSO, if you have something like this happen, PLEASE call Sen. Grothman's office. He's cataloging these inane teachers politicizing their classrooms. AND contact the principal of your school IMMEDIATELY and demand a meeting with the principal AND the teacher. Demand that your child not be exposed to one sided political indoctrination. Get that assurance in writing, and an assurance your child will not be punished because of mom and dad's politics. That you all even HAVE to deal with this is outrageous.

You can all send me any info YOU have on teachers doing this in class. But please contact Sen. Grothman AND your child's princpal and teacher.

Here is the mail (and yes, I've edited out identifying info--too bad unionistas!):

I had a good friend call me last night upset over an issue that I believe is wrong and so will you.

Here daughter attends a school in the MPS system.

Last week, they were given an assignment to write an essay on How the Budget Repair Bill effects Teachers and students. Her teacher stood up in front of the class and of course ripped into Governor Walker and all disadvantages that this bill will have against their teacher and classroom. She did finish stating of course, this is just my opinion.

Yesterday, my friends 4th grader asked her Mother to read what she had started and she had written how the budget was going to be bad because of more students in the classroom and the students will not be able to learn properly, etc. My friend asked her daughter if she actually know what the bill was about and to explain it to her. Of course, she could only repeat the talking points of the teacher and my friend said that she Mommy and Daddy don't believe this way and you need to write an essay on a different subject since you don't know all the facts. Her daughter started crying and said that this was the only subject they could write their essay on, they would be graded and the essays would be sent to Governor Walker to ready.

My friend told her daughter that she could write the essay, but it would be how your mother and father believe it should be written. More tears as she's afraid of receiving a failed grade as that is not what she was taught in the classroom. I did suggest that she goes to the school and talk to the councilor, but also told her that if we can, this needs to get out into the public and of course, that is where you come in.

My friend is willing to give more details and even share the letter, just so her daughters name is not made public.

I also have a niece who was needing a ride to school. Her Mother grabbed the keys to the Van and my niece asked if they could use a different car because she was afraid to have her teachers see her in the Van that had a Scott Walker sticker on it. She's not embarrassed by Scott Walker, she's afraid she will get poor grades because she supports Scott Walker. This is also the same niece that was told by her teacher, "don't waste the staples because of Scott Walker, we won't have anymore staples when these are gone". By the way, no worries about the Scott Walker sticker anymore, someone actually ripped it off the car, although my sister is trying to find a new one to replace it.

NEA teaching children at the expense of collective barganing a cost to high to pay